Paulo Martinho

Numerical evaluation of the wave energy resource along the Atlantic European coast

In the present paper a hindcast system is applied to the analysis of the Atlantic European coast as a whole with specific nestings for sites of interest in each country. The areas included in this study were: Ireland west coast, UK South Western coast, France west coast, northern Spain and Canary Islands and Portugals continental coast. Two contemporary spectral models were used: WaveWatch III for wave generation, covering almost the entire North Atlantic basin, which outputs are then used as boundary conditions for SWAN which simulates wave transformation in coastal areas. Wind fields were taken from the ERA Interim data base. Results are validated against buoy data. These validations allowed a reformulation, when needed, of the models configurations in order to better tune its outcomes to the real data. Using the energy transport vectors given by SWAN, the wave power is afterwards calculated and an energy resource assessment is done for a period of several years.

Assessment of the changes induced by a wave energy farm in the nearshore wave conditions

Starting from the observation that an important next stage in exploiting the ocean energy is to install large arrays of several identical devices in order to raise their overall electricity production, the present work has as objective to assess the local and coastal impact of a large wave farm that would operate in the Portuguese coastal environment. The target area is the Portuguese maritime pilot zone, Sao Pedro de Moel, which is located in the central part of the Portuguese continental nearshore. A generic wave farm was considered and various transmission situations were analyzed. The study started with the situation without wave farm (zero absorption) and subsequently different scenarios were considered by gradually increasing the conditions to the hypothetic case of the total absorption. For each case study, model simulations were performed covering the entire year 2009 using a wave prediction system based on Wave Watch 3, for the wave generation at the level of the entire North Atlantic Ocean, and on SWAN, for the coastal wave transformation. In this way, a comprehensive picture of the possible impact of the wave farm is provided. The results show that the presence of a wave farm operating offshore has a strong influence on the wave conditions immediately down wave. Although this influence is usually attenuated at the level of the coastline, it appears as obvious a general decrease in terms of significant wave height due to the wave farm, but also some other wave parameters are modified.

Modelling Wave Energy Resources in the Irish West Coast

In order to assess the potential wave energy extraction, a study is made to validate a model that can be used to characterize Ireland’s wave climate in a more extensive study. The target area is the Irish West Coast, known for having the highest average wave power in Europe. The wave conditions in the coastal area were characterized by coupling the wave models SWAN and WAVEWATCH III. Validation tests are carried out with buoy data so that the model’s performance can be evaluated. The wave parameters considered for the comparisons in the time domain are significant wave height and mean period, and the spatial distribution of wave energy is examined in a case study. Theoretical values of wave power are obtained for sites close to the coast and in particular for the two tests sites of Galway and Belmullet.Copyright